


The Princess and The Dragon

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life, low stakes fluff, mild fantasy violence as imagined by 9 year olds, mostly background Faerghus four, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27218398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: While visiting the castle at Fhirdiad with her family for the first time, a young Annette Dominic is sent off to play with the other children. Over the course of the afternoon, she acquires one sword, one friend, and one nebulous vendetta against knighthood.AU where Annette meets the Faerghus Four well before arriving at the Officer's Academy. Alternatively, from a certain point of view, AU where Felix is a very mediocre dragon.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 24
Kudos: 56





	The Princess and The Dragon

Three pairs of eyes looked down at the young girl, and one set of eyes looked up at her. They moved in unison, in sync. An eight-eyed monster.

After an excruciating silent standoff, the boy with the blue pair of eyes spoke. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. The leader. Kind, in spite of this.

“You said your name was Annette?” he asked her. She nodded solemnly. Eight eyes blinked at her, not in unison. “Your father knows my father,” he added after she didn’t reply, as if this solved something.

“That’s right,” she said, to have something to say. “That’s why we’re here. So they could see each other.”

The leader nodded again, as if this was useful information, and not something they all already knew. Her parents rarely made the trip to Fhirdiad together, but this must have been a big event, because they’d all traveled together, and the great hall of the palace was full of people when they arrived. Her mother had greeted old friends eagerly, her father had been bundled off to another room almost immediately. When her mother had pushed her outside, towards the eight-eyed monster, she’d made it sound so simple – go play with the other children, dear. It was like this was a weekly event, not the most overwhelming experience of Annette Dominic’s young life.

The oldest set of eyes finally spoke. Red hair. Too tall. The authority, if not the leader. “We were playing knights,” he explained, cheerfully, his voice a peace offering. “Would you like to be a princess?”

Annette frowned. She did want to be a princess, very much, but if the game was knights, this seemed like a downgrade. Or maybe it was a place of honor? She wasn’t sure; she’d never had friends to play with before.

“Okay,” she said finally, because it was easier to say yes to an eight-eyed monster than it was to think of a reason to say no. “But I want a sword.”

She did, too.

The oldest eyes seemed surprised at this, like he might say something, but the third eyes, the girl, cut him off. “She can have Felix’s sword,” she said. “He can be the dragon.”

Some amicable arrangement had been agreed to, one that Annette did not quite understand, although she supposed she had gotten all her ends of the bargain. Swords were passed around (one pressed into Annette’s hands), shoves exchanged, arguments silenced, and the tallest six eyes ran off through the grass to do whatever it was knights did. Annette was left alone with the shortest set of eyes. Felix. The dragon.

Annette sat on a stone bench in the garden and looked at him. He hadn’t spoken during the negotiations and he didn’t speak now. He looked at her – or maybe her sword – with large, envious eyes, unashamed that he was staring. Annette frowned at him. It was rude to look at someone without talking to them. She would fix that. Annette was good at fixing things.

“So what does a dragon do?” she asked him. If they were talking, then he wasn’t staring. She would solve the problem.

He blinked at her for a moment, then furrowed his brow. “I'm not sure,” he said. His voice was high and soft, and she had to lean forward to hear him. “We’ve never had one before.”

“Oh!” Annette said. “Why are you the dragon this time?”

“I guess they figured, if have a princess, you need a dragon,” Felix said. Annette didn’t understand why he sounded so glum, but he soon clarified. “I’m the worst at being a knight,” he confessed, as if it was painful but necessary to say. “I drop my sword. I run away. I might as well be a dragon.”

“You make a nice dragon,” Annette said, to try to cheer him up. When he did not seem cheered by this, she asked, “What do you usually do as knights?”

“Practice sparring. Go on adventures. Look for the dragon,” the boy listed these things patiently, slowly, as if Annette was dumb for not knowing. “It’s not about finding the dragon or the princess,” he explained knowingly. “It’s about searching for them.”

Annette looked at him as if for the first time, suddenly curious. That sounded like something a knight out of a story would say. She liked it. He was shorter than her, and she had a sword and he didn’t, but he could be a knight out of a story if he had armor, and a proper horse, and maybe she’d lend him her sword.

But she was getting off topic. He wasn’t a knight, he was a dragon; they’d just established that.

“Well now that they know where the dragon is, what will they do when they come back?” she asked. She was eager to learn the rules of the game. It was fun to have more friends than a collection of books and your own voice.

He frowned uncertainly. “We’ve never gotten to that part,” he said. “I guess they’ll . . . fight me? Kill me? That’s what you do, to save a princess.”

Annette jumped up from the bench. This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. “Fight you?” she exclaimed, holding her sword tighter. “That’s not fair! You don’t have any way to defend yourself!”

Felix scowled at her. “Yes I do!” he protested. “I have, um, claws.” He held up his hands, fingers extended. “And I can breathe fire,” he added. His voice grew hesitant, as he’d clearly reached the end of his list. “And, um. . . dragons are supposed to die, anyways.”

This wouldn’t do at _all_. Annette pushed him back on the bench, jumped in front of him. “I’ll protect you, don’t worry,” she said. “I have a sword, after all.”

“That’s not how it _works_ ,” he protested, upset. “The dragon guards the princess; the princess doesn’t guard the dragon.”

“Well maybe I want to guard you, did you ever think of that!” Annette said, swinging her sword toward him.

“Well maybe I want to guard you, too,” he shot back, unafraid by her amateur stance.

Their standoff could have gone on like that. Annette had the upper hand in weaponry, but was severely disadvantaged by kindness – she couldn’t actually bring herself to swing the sword, even if he was stubborn, even if he was a dragon. But their stalemate was interrupted by a voice calling Annette’s name. Annette looked up, surprised to remember there was a world outside of this moment.

“Annette! Annette if you would come inside – oh!” Annette’s mother stood at the edge of the gardens, frowning slightly. “Annette, it’s not nice to threaten boys with swords. Apologize, and come back in.”

Annette felt the tips of her ears burning, and dropped the sword as if it was on fire. It wasn’t fair. She turned to the dragon, open mouthed, not sure what to apologize for, but he had already bent down and picked up the sword and he leaned forward and grasped her hand eagerly.

“The next time you visit, the next time we see each other,” he said eagerly, “I’ll be better with a sword. I can be a knight, then.”

She smiled back. “I’m glad,” she said. “But I really did like you as a dragon, you know.”

He faltered, looked at her curiously. She smiled. “You were much better at guarding me than the knights were. But tell them goodbye for me, when they return. It was nice to meet you.”

She scampered off after her mother, before he could tell her she was wrong, before he could say he had never wanted to spend time with her. She liked him too much, with his large eyes and his storybook quotations and his clumsy sword arm, to want to hear that it had all been an accident.

She looked over her shoulder as her mother shuffled her back indoors. The boy gave a practice swing of a sword, claws and scales gone, reverting back to knighthood.

He was alone, and he didn’t look after her. His stance and swing were as beautiful as any she had ever seen.

She missed him as a dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for some prompt game where the prompt was "Dragon." I thought I was very clever at the time but then I reread it a couple months later and I was just like, why am I writing about children. I don't know a single children.
> 
> I dunno, I still kind of like it, overall, even if it's my usual style (or topic matter).
> 
> I love that if there's one thing the Faerghus Four can agree on, it's that their childhoods would have been better if Annette had been around. I figure there had to be some diplomatic event or other that throws them altogether for a week or so. Or maybe this is the only time they meet before the Officer's Academy and Felix spends the next five years thinking about that cool girl he met that one time that threatened him with a sword. Very formative.
> 
> Anyway! Please take any dialogue you find authentic to be evidence of my keen ear for human character, and any writing you find to be strange and unusual to be evidence of my knack for bold experimentation. In either case, thanks for reading!
> 
> [twitter twitter twitter ](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes)


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